Tag Archives: Military Transition

Finally settling your VA claim, part 2: what it means to your bank account

Posted by Mike Grice on

My VA claim was finally settled a month ago after about two years of waiting.  I know it was settled because the VA sent me a very nice letter saying that it was, and along with my final disability rating came a brief paragraph that indicated that I would be receiving a settlement check from both the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) as well as the VA.  Intriguing, thought I.  What exactly did that mean, and more importantly for my bank account, how much money were we talking about?

The way that the system is supposed to work is that you receive any compensation related to your disability rating beginning the day after you leave the military.  That payment is supposed to come directly from the VA, and DFAS should have nothing to do with it.  Except for a couple of cases…

…like mine.

In my case, I received no VA compensation until my case was partially adjudicated some ten months after the claim was filed.  During that time I was receiving my full military pension.

On the tenth month of the life of my disability claim the VA made a partial determination in my case.  They rated me at a low level for a few conditions, but they needed to conduct more examinations to determine if I was eligible for a higher rating.  The bottom line was that now I was eligible to receive some compensation from the VA.

Great!

The devil is always in the details, however, and instead of receiving a check on top of my pension the military deducted the amount of my VA compensation from my pension.  The VA then did send me a check, but for the same amount that was deducted from my pension.  Pretty much a zero sum game, except that the VA compensation is tax free.  Here is an explanation of how it works from a previous post:

Let’s say that you receive a disability rating that results in a payment from the VA of $100.  That $100 is not added to your check for a total of $1600.  Instead, $100 of the $1500 that was paid by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) is now paid by the VA, so the total pension amount stays the same.  What changes is how the taxes are computed.

Now you have $1400 that is taxable, which results in a slightly lower tax bill.  Here is the math:

$1400 x 20% = $280 in taxes.

$1400 (from DFAS) + $100 (from the VA) = $1500 (which is your pension amount).

$1500 (pension + VA Disability) – $280 (taxes) = $1220.

Sooooo…..as a retiree you get an extra twenty bucks in your monthly check.  If you are not a retiree, however, you get the full $100.

In my case, I received the partial claim amount until my claim was settled a whole year later.  Now I became eligible for not only the full VA compensation amount, but also a check that amounts to all of the compensation that I would have been paid had my claim been settled the day I left active duty.  In other words, the VA would write me a check for the full amount of compensation I was eligible for, minus the money that I had already received.  Here is an example of how that works (following the previous example):

To keep things simple, I will use $100 as the partial claim compensation amount and $200 as the final compensation amount.  My claim took 22 months to complete, with a partial settlement issued at month ten.  The math looks like this:

Total amount of VA compensation that the veteran should receive in this case is computed by multiplying the number of months eligible times the final compensation amount, as follows: $200 x 22 = $4400.

The amount of VA compensation that the veteran has received to this point is computed by subtracting the number of months he or she received compensation from the total months eligible, and then multiplying that number by the partial settlement compensation amount, as follows:  22 – 10 = 12 months: 12 x $100 = $1200.

Now that we know how much the total amount of compensation the veteran is eligible for ($4400) and the amount of compensation that he or she has already received ($1000), we can determine the settlement amount from the VA by subtracting the amount received from the total amount:  $4400 – $1200 = $3200.

So the veteran will receive a tax free check for $3200.  Sweet!

But wait, there’s more…

For those veterans who are retired from the military, they are owed the same back pay as shown above, but in addition DFAS is required to pay back the taxes collected on the back pay.  For every month that you should have received a payment from the VA but didn’t, that amount was taxed.  Since VA compensation is tax free, you are due the taxes that you paid.  It is calculated as follows:

From the problem above, you are about to receive a check for $3200 from the VA.  DFAS has already deducted the taxes for the first $1200, but has not done so for the remaining $3200.  In effect, you have been paid that amount and been taxed on it, so DFAS needs to cut you a check for the taxes (assuming a 20% tax rate as used in the problem above): $3200 x 20% = $640.  Unfortunately, since you are retired and not simply out of the service you don’t get $3200.  You get $640.  Not as sweet, but still a nice chunk of change. 

But wait, there is still more!

In cases where your disability compensation rating is 50% or more, you are eligible for Concurrent Receipt of VA Compensation and Retired Pay through a program known as CRDP (Concurrent Retirement and Disability Pay — to learn more about the nuts and bolts of the program follow this link).  Concurrent receipt means that you receive checks from both DFAS and the VA, and that you are entitled to the full amount of eligibility from both.  Now the numbers are quite different when you calculate them using the numbers above:

Since you are eligible to receive both checks, you will receive your full settlement check from the VA as well as back pay for the pension amount that was deducted and replaced by the monthly VA claim amount, less taxes on that amount.  Sounds complicated, but it really isn’t. The math looks like this:  (Full VA settlement amount) $3200 + (Pension amount deducted and replaced by the VA) $1200 – (taxes on the pension amount deducted and replaced by the VA) $640 = $3760.

If your brain hurts, that’s ok.  The bottom line is that the DFAS and the VA are sending you a check that will cover the cost of whole lot of aspirin.

Patience

Posted by Mike Grice on

I just had lunch with a friend and colleague who is currently on terminal leave.  He has climbed out of the cockpit for the last time and now he is knee deep in the job hunt.

We had a great conversation about the highs and lows of transition, and it brought out one aspect of the journey from being a uniformed killer to a suit-wearing civilian: it takes time.  Lots and lots of time.  And, to reach a happy destination at the end of that journey, it requires patience.

Lots and lots of patience.

Patience to work through the Veterans Administration’s bureaucracy for things like the GI Bill, medical examinations, and the excruciatingly long disability claims process.

Patience to find out what you want to do with the rest of your life.  Once you take your uniform cap off for the last time something happens to your brain, and suddenly the things that you thought would be easy (like getting a sweet job, going back to college, moving back home) are dauntingly hard.

So this is a quick post on the importance of patience.  Even though the trials and tribulations of your transition are unique to you, there are tens of thousands of people just like you going through the same thing.  Those who are the most successful are those who are patient.

A smart person once said that with patience comes wisdom, and that person was right.  A certain way to be unhappy is to jump on the first job that comes your way, because it most likely is not what you really want to do.  Following the quick and easy path to a college or school with a dubious reputation will result in your GI Bill benefits being flushed down the proverbial toilet because once they are gone you can never get them back and use them at a more reputable university that takes a little work to get into.

Patience is a virtue, even though it is very painful at times.  So stick it out, hold to your goals and dreams, and keep moving towards them.  Don’t give up and take the easier path — you’ll regret it later.

Trust me.

Another “plan” to reduce retired veteran benefits

Posted by Mike Grice on

I wrote about not long ago about the government’s strong desire to reduce the health insurance benefit for military retirees.  The subject has reared its ugly head again with a renewed attack on retirees who are enrolled in TRICARE, the health care system for military members, their families, and retirees.

As reported in the Marine Corps Times yesterday (you can read the whole article here), Chuck Hagel, the Secretary of Defense, proposed that “working age” retirees should not be able to utilize TRICARE as their primary health care system but instead should be required to use their employer’s plan instead.  TRICARE would only be used as a secondary or backup plan.

Although the proposal is a long way from being written into legislation, it is a strong indicator that veterans are choice targets in the DOD’s battle of the budget.  Should it become law, though, it will be a significant blow to the 1.6 million veteran retirees who are currently enrolled in TRICARE but have not yet reached age 65.

Interestingly, the issue is one that impacts the Department of Defense and not the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is why the SecDef is pushing for the change.  Most benefits for veterans are covered by the VA, but in the case of retirees it is the DOD that pays the bills.  A retiree’s pension comes from the same place that it did when he or she was still in uniform: the Defense Finance and Accounting Service.  TRICARE, the military and retiree health plan, is also covered by the DOD’s budget.

And Chuck Hagel doesn’t like that very much.

The DOD continues to bang the drum of readiness, and as happens at the end of every war the organization focuses inwards to guard as much of the fiscal pie as possible from those who demand that the post-war military machine shrink in response to the wars no longer being fought.

I find that to be as normal as dawn follows darkness, but I also find the scapegoating of retirees to be a bit insulting.  It is OK for the military to squander $34 million on a useless headquarters in Afghanistan that the military commanders on the ground didn’t even want, but it is not OK for the Department of Defense to honor its commitment to those who dedicate decades of their lives to the defense of the nation.  Instead of conducting a thorough and critical review of the hundreds of billions of dollars spent (and often squandered) on defense equipment and service contracts Hagel finds it easier to go after those who actually went into harm’s way than the connected and powerful  who never left the comfort of their own living rooms.

It is an example of the oddly twisted thinking that pervades governmental agencies, and in my opinion it is just as hypocritical as the administration pushing to subsidize healthcare costs for members of congress and their staffs while ignoring small business’s pleas for relief from the costly requirements.

Anyhow, if having my promised access to health care is cut as an expedient to allow the DOD to keep squandering the taxpayer’s dollar, then so be it.

All I ask is for every military recruiter from every branch of service to explain to every prospective recruit and officer candidate that the benefits that they are being promised in exchange for the opportunity to risk their lives are not really promises.

They’re just part of the honorless practice of bait and switch.  I had always thought that we, as a nation, were better than that.

Sadly, I guess not.

The things you don’t expect: life out of uniform is not as easy as you might think!

Posted by Mike Grice on

This morning I literally ran into a friend of mine as I was out pounding the pavement on my daily jog.  He was returning from his morning run and I was just heading out on mine, so we stopped for a few minutes and catch up on things.

We chatted about this and that, and before long we were comparing life in uniform to life after you hang your uniform up.  In addition to the obvious differences, like being able to sleep late, grow your hair, and go for a run without wearing an obnoxiously annoying reflective belt, there are some that become apparent only when you need to get something done.

One of the tremendous strengths of the military is that many of the mundane, yet annoying, aspects of life are taken care of for you.  Things like food (which sits waiting for you to start eating at chowhalls on every base) and clothes (with uniforms being issued and a clothing allowance to help defray the cost to replace them) and administration (with clerks waiting to solve any problems you may have with your pay and allowances).  These things are taken care of so that warfighters can devote their time and efforts on the mission of preparing for and fighting our nation’s battles and winning our country’s wars.

Not so much in the civilian world.  Those things get done by one person.

You.

Although it may seem obvious that you will need to take care of all of these things (and more) yourself, it is not so simple.  What I was not really prepared for was the amount of time that I had to dedicate to taking care of all of those mundane little ankle biting tasks that civilians have been dealing with their whole lives.  Where before things like pay problems and meals seemed to take care of themselves I now found myself spending hours at the bank and the grocery store because otherwise my family and I would be broke and hungry.  Suddenly there was nobody around to deal with those things but me.

Civilians are used to it.  They cook their own meals because there are no chowhalls in suburbia.  They go shopping and buy their own clothes, which can be quite daunting when you consider that military folks have been wearing the same shoes and combat boots and dress uniforms for decades. When they have a problem with their paychecks or vacation days they get to go deal with it themselves because there is no First Sergeant or Sergeant Major or Chief Petty Officer hanging around the office to deal with such matters.

One of the things that comes with hanging up your uniform is freedom.  Freedom from people in different uniforms (or no uniforms at all) shooting at you as well as from people in your own uniform yelling at you and waking you up in the middle of the night.  With that freedom, however, comes responsibility for yourself in a way that has not been a critical part of your life since you first swore to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America.

Now you have to do all of those little annoying ankle-biting things that everybody else in the civilian world does.  And let me tell you, it takes some getting used to because everything takes a lot longer than you think it should and there is nobody there to tell you the right or wrong way to do things.  Just like you once learned how to become a successful Soldier, Sailor, Airman, or Marine you must now learn how to become a successful civilian.

This time, though, you don’ t have a Drill Instructor “mentoring” you along.  You also don’t have a platoon of bald and nervous friends learning the ropes with you.  This time you get to figure it all out on your own.  But, all things considered, it isn’t bad.  It’s just a little surprising.

And really annoying.

Good luck!

Nearing the end of the VA claims tunnel…

Posted by Mike Grice on

Well, the big day is nearly here.

Which big day, you ask?

Why, the day when my VA Disability claim finally gets decided.  That day!

You see, I have been going back and forth with the VA for over a year and a half now, and after a lot of trials and tribulations it looks like my case file may have reached the last step on the journey to adjudication.  It is now “Ready for Decision”, which means that all of the required examinations have been completed, all of the paperwork filled out, and all of the supporting documentary evidence has been gathered.

As I wrote a few posts ago, I had initiated another inquiry into the status of my claim because it had stalled after my last round of physical exams.  Today I received an email from the VA explaining just what was up with my case just as they promised.  The system works!  I asked for information and they provided it within the timeline that was promised.  Sweet!

From the email:

Your claim has been determined as Ready For Decision, and as such there is no further update pending. You will receive a notification letter and rating decision copy via US Mail once our decision is complete.

You have not received a rating decision because there is a back log of claims in the same status, and your claim is pending a review and determination by your rating specialists case manager.

Barring any determination by the rating specialists responsible for your claim that additional information may be needed, your next update will be your actual notification letter and rating decision. At this time we do not know the time frame for completion until your case manager begins the process of rating your claim; this will be accomplished in an order based on date of receipt, in fairness to all claimants.

• Please be advised that we do not provide estimates for completion, as there are a multitude of factors that impact the speed at which each claim is rated, making it impossible to estimate said date. 

We can appreciate your desire to have your claim rated; please know that we are working to accommodate your desire in conjunction with that of each and every other claimant seeking completion of their claim.

We appreciate your continued patience during the process, and will inform you of our decision as soon as it has been accomplished.

So, in a nutshell, my case is resting on desk of the team which will determine my disability rating.

All I have to do is wait.

I wonder how long this stage will take?

Leadership and Transition

Posted by Mike Grice on

I am in the middle of writing a series of articles and a book about transition, and about a month ago I created a survey about the military transition process to help gather information on the subject (and if you have not taken it, please do!  I can never get enough data points:  Military Transition Survey).  The survey revealed some very interesting data points, and one struck me as being particularly revealing about how those undergoing transition are viewed and treated by their organizations as they leave the service.

The question was: “How involved was your unit and/or unit leadership in your transition process?”

The answers ranged from “Very Low” to “Very High”.  See if you can guess where the bulk of respondents fell on the scale…

Well, a startlingly low percentage felt that their units were involved in their transition.  Only 8% felt that their unit and their leaders were highly or very highly involved.  For an institution that prides itself on being the gold standard of leadership that is a pretty dismal level of effort.

What is shocking is how poor the involvement was.  15% of respondents selected “Neither High nor Low” (which was the middle of the scale), but a whopping 76% stated that the involvement of their units and leadership was “Low” or “Very Low”.  Ouch!

Upon reading the results I had to think back to my personal experience with transition.  As a leader myself, I had always thought that I had taken care of those in my charge, including those who chose to hang up their uniforms.  After reflecting for a bit I realized that although I was very supportive of their efforts I certainly could have done a whole lot more.

I would sit down and talk with every Marine and Sailor who left my command.  The conversation that we would have varied depending on what was next for them as they departed the unit; if they were transferring to another duty station we would talk about what was in store for them and how it could impact their career and family, and if they were getting out we would have a discussion of where their lives were headed.  I would try to guide and mentor them towards pursuing an education by taking advantage of the GI Bill, and in cases where he had no interest in further education I would try to get them to at least formulate a plan for the way ahead.  After we spoke and shook hands we parted ways.

That was all well and good.  But I could, and should, have have been much more engaged.  As I learned during my transition there was a lot to do after I checked out of my unit, and I was pretty much completely on my own to get it done.  As a leader I should have gone the extra mile and actually followed their progress as they navigated the path of transition, but I didn’t.  I should have gone to the transition assistance classes to see what was being taught and how my Marines and Sailors were being treated, but I didn’t.  Shame on me.

As I discovered out during my own outprocessing there are a lot of bumps in the offramp from military service.  As I transitioned I found the process to be both difficult and annoying, and I was a senior officer with nearly three decades of experience.  If it was hard for me, how tough was it for a young man or woman who served only one tour?

The answer to that question is that it was a lot harder for them than it was for me.  Part of the reason that it was harder is because they were just cast upon the waters of transition without the guidance and oversight that they had experienced during their time in the military.

From the day that they met their recruiter to the day that they decided to leave the military each and every servicemember was under the guidance and tutelage of a concerned leader.  Recruiters prepared them for bootcamp, and their drill instructors molded them into Marines (or Sailors, or Soldiers, or Airmen).  They were trained by professional instructors in their military trades, and became valued parts of units and teams in the operating forces.  They became leaders in their own rights as they progressed up the ranks, and they were always under the wing of those who had been around longer than they had.

Unfortunately, when they decided to get out the concerned leadership of their units disappeared.  They (and I) were no longer valued members of the team, but instead guys and gals who were getting out.  To be fair, there certainly is a lot going on in the military these days with things like combat deployments, training exercises, and everything else that is part of the military experience.  That said, as leaders we failed to be there for the final chapter of military service for 76% of those who transitioned out of the military.

That is truly a shame, and something that should be addressed.  In my humble opinion, the most significant portion of the problem is how the TAP/TAMP and transition process is performed.  Those on the way out are centrally trained for transition, and the centralization of training removes the onus of oversight from the units that they came from.  They are out of sight and out of mind, and as such quickly become forgotten in the churn of daily military life.  The close bonds that they formed with their peers, subordinates, and seniors quickly fade during the time when they need them most: the incredibly stressful and uncertain transition from the all encompassing world that they knew to an ambiguous future in a world that they left years before.

Another telling statistic from the survey is how well the respondents felt that their transition process prepared them for re-entry into civilian life.  Sadly, on 12% felt that they were fully prepared for the jump.  That number should be much higher, and perhaps it would be if leaders were more involved in their people who are transitioning.

How many would have felt more prepared if their leaders had stayed as engaged with them during their last days in uniform as they were in the beginning?

Calling the VA. Again.

Posted by Mike Grice on

In theory, I have undergone all of the physical examinations, evaluations, pokings, and proddings that are part and parcel of transitioning from Active Duty to becoming a veteran.  After over a dozen trips to various clinics and hospitals at the end of my time in uniform and during my first year or so of post-military life I have been informed that all of my examinations are complete.  To make sure that they were all indeed finished, I logged into the VA website regularly to see if my status had changed.

To my utter lack of surprise, it didn’t.  Growing tired of logging in and viewing at an unchanging screen on the VA’s eBenefits webpage, I looked forlornly at the telephone on my desk and resigned myself to another early morning attempt to get through to the VA.

So, early the next morning, I grabbed a cup of coffee and staggered into my office.  I punched in the VA’s telephone number, and much to my surprise (not really) found that even though it was a couple of hours before the rooster would crow (on the West coast, at least), all operators were busy.  I was, however, offered the option of having a VA representative call me back the following week at a time that would be convenient for me.

I figured that the following Monday at about 0900 was convenient enough, so I hung up and waited for the weekend to pass.

It did, and sure enough my phone rang at about 0905, with a live human being on the other end!  Very exciting indeed.  After providing my social security number and other identifying information, the nice lady on the other end asked how she could help me.  Although deep down I didn’t think that there was much help to be had, I asked anyway.

“Can you tell me the status of my case?”

After a few moments of furious typing on the other end of the line, my VA friend replied:

“It’s under review.”

Which is exactly where it has been for nearly nine months.

We talked for a few minutes, and then I hung up.  In order to spare you from the rather boring conversation, I’ll just cover what she had to say.

1.  All of my examinations are complete.  That said, if they find something that they need to look into I will again be headed off to the examination clinic.

2.  My results are somewhere between the clinic and my case file.  Even though it has been nearly two months since my last exams, the results have not made it to my case team.  Not surprising, but still disappointing.

3.  Once my team receives my results, they will merge them with my file and put it in the queue.  When my file comes to the top of the pile they will evaluate it and let me know the result.

How long will that take, I asked?

“Nine to twelve months.”

Sigh.  Good thing I’m not in a rush.

The importance of differentiation

Posted by Mike Grice on

There are many career paths that you can take in the military.  The obvious ones include those that involve fighting, but there are a whole lot of jobs that don’t.  For every infantryman who carries a rifle into harm’s way there are anywhere from three to ten or more men and women in uniform who make sure that the grunt on patrol has the ammunition, water, fuel, and everything else he might need.  Every tank has a crew of four, but before it rumbles into the fight dozens of mechanics and ordnance specialists and electricians perform hours and hours of maintenance to make sure that the vehicle is in tip-top shape.  For every naval aviator who catapults from the deck of an aircraft carrier there are thousands of shipmates aboard who do everything from chipping paint from the rusty decks to keeping the nuclear reactors on line to making and serving chow.

Those jobs are all crucial in order for the military to accomplish its mission of keeping the nation safe.  Interestingly, within the military itself, even though all of those duties are important there is a definite difference in the prestige associated with them.  In the Marine Corps, for example, the infantry is considered to the ultimate expression of the service; everything else as they say is just support.  In the Air Force it is the fighter pilots who have ruled the roost for decades, and in the Navy the ship drivers and aviators are those who wield the most power.  For the Army, it is the infantry and armor branches that hold the most distinction.

Unfortunately the most prestigious positions in the military are also those with the least direct corollary to civilian employment.  There are no civilian infantry battalions, fighter squadrons, tank platoons, or aircraft carriers.  There are, however, plenty of jobs in those support areas that are often viewed as second class within the military.  The civilian world does not need artillerymen, but it does need electricians.  It needs truck drivers, and mechanics, and logisticians.

In short, the civilian world needs people with definable and useful skills.

Skills, for example, that an employer can put to work immediately without taking the risk of hiring someone who may or may not know enough about the business to be effective.

Unfortunately, many of the skills that those in uniform who have spent the majority of their time at the pointy end of the spear have developed are not directly transferable to the corporate sector.  Being a leader is great, and undoubtedly the leadership skills that our warriors have gained in Iraq and Afghanistan are first rate.  That is great for the military because leading people to do amazing things is what the military is all about, and the best military leaders we have are those who are dedicated to mastering their craft and being the most proficient soldiers or sailors or Marines possible.

Leadership in the civilian world is leadership in a different context.  An infantryman can demonstrate his leadership through arduous training, bravery, and a consummate grasp of tactics, weapons, and equipment.  By being a first rate infantryman, he can lead by example and inspire his fellows and juniors to shoulder their loads and step out to meet the enemy.  The best leaders we have are those who are the best at what they do: they are the best infantrymen or tankers or pilots or ship drivers.

The civilian world is no different.  The best CEOs are those who have dedicated themselves to learning their businesses inside and out.  They inspire their people to great achievement by understanding their industry and markets and customers and then being able to align the company’s employees to meet their goals and objectives.  They challenge their people and recognize those who excel.  Instead of using medals to motivate their corporate troops, they use other things such as money and stock options and trips to the Bahamas.  They lead by example and are masters of their craft.

It is here that the perception that many military leaders, particularly those in the combat arms, runs awry.  I cannot count the number of conversations that I have had with my peers and friends in uniform in which we talked about how we, the combat leaders, had all the skills that would make us tremendous leaders and invaluable assets to any company that would be lucky enough to hire us.

How wrong we were.

Sure, corporations want great leaders.  Every company does.  They also want people who know their business or have a skill that the firm needs.  Therein lies the rub, and brings to mind a story from my days as a young and motivated Captain:

I once had an officer who was a student of mine at the artillery school.  He was a graduate of the Citadel, which is a renowned military college in South Carolina.  As a cadet there he rose to a high position of leadership in the Corps of Cadets, and he was without a doubt a fine leader.  That said, he was a lousy student.  When I asked him why this was so, he answered that he joined the military to lead men and learning about how to load and fire an artillery piece was interesting but not particularly relevant to his desire to be the next MacArthur.

I explained to him that leadership is not something that you have because of rank or position, but instead it is something that is earned through the respect of those you lead.  He would never be a good leader in the artillery if he did not show that he was a solid artilleryman, and to be a solid artilleryman he had to learn how to load and fire an artillery piece.  People who show up and start barking orders without knowing what they are talking about are idiots, not leaders.

That is the point that so many people in the military miss.  Sure, we all developed leadership styles that inspire young men and women to enthusiastically throw themselves into the crucible of combat, but those styles were largely based on our professionalism and mastery of our martial craft.  None of those same people would have followed us if we didn’t know what we were doing.

The lesson here is that if you, as a military leader, want to bring your talents to the civilian world you will need to more than just be a “leader”.  You will need to differentiate yourself and show that you can do more than just lead.  Can you read a balance sheet?  How about a profit and loss statement?  Do you understand marketing, or finance, or accounting, or any of the countless other things that make the business world run?

The corporate sector has lots of great leaders.  How would you feel, as an infantryman, if the CEO of a company was hired to become your battalion commander and take you into combat?  Would you follow him?  Of course not.  Why, then, do so many military folks drink their own bathwater and believe that they corporate sector is waiting for them to leave the service and take over their businesses?

To be competitive in the job market it is important for each and every person who transitions from military service to find something that they can offer a potential employer besides war stories.  Those who have learned a skill or trade, while maybe not being on the front lines and earning medals for valor, take those skills with them when the leave the service.  That is their point of differentiation that separates them from all of the other candidates for a job.

As a leader, what is yours?

What do you miss about being in uniform?

Posted by Mike Grice on

When I hung up my uniform for the last time I realized that a huge and fundamental part of my life had changed.  What I did not appreciate at the time, however, was how much the people that I had served with during my career were in that change.

The military is, in many ways, a closed society.  We go to work on bases that are segregated from the civilian population, and we spend days, weeks, and months on end training and preparing to defend the nation from its enemies.  We deploy away from our homes on ships and airplanes with people just like us in the berthing spaces and seats next to us.  Being in the military is an intense and all encompassing immersive experience.

It begins with the shock of meeting your Drill Instructor or Drill Sergeant or whatever your service calls the steely eyed killer who breaks you of all of your nasty civilian habits and transforms you into a Marine, Sailor, Soldier, or Airman.  It continues as you go through training to learn your military craft, and the bonds between you and your compatriots is cemented when you show up to your first operational unit.

It continues as long as you wear the uniform.  Whether you stay in for three years or thirty, you experience a shift in your soul by wearing the cloth of the nation.  You become a critical part of a team, and live your life with people who would willingly die or kill for you — and you would willingly do the same for them.  It is an incredibly powerful experience that suddenly comes to a shocking end when you get out.

One of the questions that I ask in the military transition survey (if you have not taken it yet, please follow this link and help me gather more data: Military Transition Survey) is what you miss the most about serving in the military.

What do you think the most common answers are?  Cool training?  Seeing new and exciting things?  The pay and benefits?

Nope.

The two most common answers by a wide margin are these:

Feeling of camaraderie with my fellow servicemembers

and

The people you served with

After spending a lot of time personally reflecting about my service, the people that I have met, the places I have gone, and the things that I have done, the thing that I personally miss the most about my time in uniform is the same.  I miss the people that I served with.  All of them.  Even the ones that I didn’t like very much, because at the end of the day they were still on my team and ready to fight by my side.

Relationships are powerful, and they are probably the one thing that you can take with you when you leave the service.  So if you are on the way out, make sure to get some email addresses and phone numbers of those you want to keep in touch with.  Find a veterans organization that you like and spend some time there.  Departing the military will drill a hole into your soul, and it is a hole that only those who have served can really help fill.  So don’t wait until it is too late, and reach out to your friends before it is too late and, like your last day in uniform, they are behind you.

Why are transition assistance programs not as effective as they should be? The answers are out there, but nobody is asking the questions.

Posted by Mike Grice on

When Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines leave the military service they are generally young, fit, and eager to get to work in the civilian world.  Many go to school to obtain an education, but many more jump headlong into the job market.  Unfortunately, they are not as prepared as they could be to compete in the cutthroat employment marketplace.  It is not because the government is not trying to help transitioning military folks learn the skills they need to get a job, because there are a multitude of programs out there to help with transition.  Unfortunately, those programs are not nearly as effective as they could and should be.

The Department of Defense, the Veterans Administration, and Department of Labor have spent many millions of dollars (over $50 Million in 2012 alone) on various programs designed to help veterans make the transition from military service to the civilian world.  These agencies are charged with conducting classes, seminars, and counseling that is designed to help those who are hanging up their uniforms with the challenging and often confusing process of becoming a civilian again.

Despite the efforts of these agencies, there is a serious problem with unemployment for recently discharged veterans.  The population of younger veterans who are recently discharged is having the toughest time, with those in the 20 – 24 year old age bracket hitting an unemployment rate of 35% in March of this year according to a Syracuse University study that was released last month (available here: March 2013 Employment Situation of Veterans) .  That stunning number is well over double the rate for the same population of non-veterans.

That means that a lot of our veterans are out of work, and as a result the DOD is paying a lot of money out in the form of unemployment benefits to those who can’t find a job.  It is a shocking amount of money.  I mean really shocking!

How shocking?  Try nearly $1 Billion dollars a year (the actual number was $928 million for 2012 and is on track to increase in 2013).  Almost one billion dollars.  For unemployment benefits.  For veterans who cannot find a job.  And it comes out of the DOD’s annual budget, and every dollar that is spent on unemployment benefits for a veteran is a dollar that is not spent on the people still serving or the equipment that they use to keep our nation safe.

Paying unemployment insurance for separated military personnel is not new for the Department of Defense.  In fact, the DOD has been paying millions of dollars in unemployment benefits for a long time, but the billion dollar pricetag is unprecedented. In 2003, the military paid about $300 million on such benefits, and a decade later that cost has over tripled.

There are a lot of reasons for the increase, with the most obvious being the increase in the number of people leaving the military and having a rough time finding a job in the tough economic conditions that exist today.

That is only part of the story, however.  The Obama administration, to their credit, has increased funding and awareness for the plight of jobless veterans.  Unfortunately, those efforts are not paying the dividends that they should be.  With such a high level of emphasis and funding for transition training and education, you would think that the unemployment rate for veterans would be at or below the non-veteran level.  Unfortunately, it is not.

That is where the data from the Orders to Nowhere Military Transition Survey becomes very interesting.

As I continue to research the subject of military transition, I have been analyzing the data from the survey and a few data points really jump out.  The first data point is how little feedback about the transition process is actually gathered by the organizations that are actually doing the transition training.

Every branch of the military uses After Action Reviews (AARs) to gather feedback from events and learn from the lessons that the AAR provides.  Pilots debrief every mission in order to become better aviators and infantrymen get together and discuss the lessons that they learned from their combat or training engagements.  These debriefs and lessons learned sharing sessions are part of every service and every career field.  Capturing lessons and learning from experience is a crucial part of what makes our military unbeatable.

Unfortunately, the AAR process does not seem to apply to transitioning or recently transitioned veterans.  Despite the culture of learning from experience, the vast pool of potential data sources — recently transitioned veterans — is virtually untapped.

The data shows that, of respondents who left the service between 2003 and 2013, less than one in five had been contacted by the Department of Defense or their branch of service about transition.  Of those one in five who had been contacted, less than half (0r just under 10% of all respondents) were asked to participate in an AAR of the transition process.

In other words, fewer than one in ten recently discharged veterans have been asked to help make the transition process better by providing feedback on their experience.

That, to me, is an incredibly disappointing statistic.  It is not particularly surprising, however.  Nobody officially asked me anything about my transition, and in my many conversations with veterans I have found that nobody asked them either.

Millions and millions of dollars are being spent every year on the military transition process, yet unemployment rates for veterans continues to exceed their civilian counterparts.  Nearly a billion dollars is being spent by the DOD on unemployment benefits for those unemployed veterans.  You would think that somebody would connect the dots between the efficacy of the military transition programs and their effect on the unemployment rate, but sadly the most readily available resource of feedback is largely being ignored.  Nobody is asking the vast majority of people who have gone through those transition programs and entered the civilian workforce about their experiences and how the transition programs could be improved.

The answers are out there.  Too bad nobody is asking the right people the questions.

In yet another shameless plug- I can never get enough data in the Orders to Nowhere Military Transition Survey.  So if you have transitioned from the US military (it doesn’t matter when), please take the survey!  If you have take it, I thank you.  Please ask others to take it too!